The Guest Star:
      Hyperion

The Villain:
      Hyperion

Guest Shots:
      the Serpent Crown; Quasar; Giant-Man; Mr. Fantastic; Thundra

The Set Up:
      Ben drops off the Serpent Crown at project Pegasus for safe-keeping, and sits down for a meal with Giant-Man and Quasar. Over the course of the conversation, the issue of Thundra and her investigation into the people who had hired her to sabotage Project Pegasus comes up. No one has heard from her since she left.
     Thundra, with Hyperion in tow, is about to enter MetroBank, a subsidiary or the people who had hired her. She and Hyperion discuss their respective histories as they come in, and they soon learn that the Nth Project (the people who had hired her) do have a way to get her home: the Nth Projector. The Nth Projector is a device that will project things from one reality into another. It should be not only possible but easy for the Nth command to send Thundra back to an alternate version of her homeworld, one which was not destroyed...
     While this is going on, Ben has returned to the Baxter Building, and become convinced by reed Richards to go make up with Alicia. As Ben approaches Alicia's apartment, flowers in hand, Alicia is leaving arm-in-arm with another man.
     Thundra, meanwhile, has stolen the Nth Projector, and after a brief squabble she and Hyperion are on the run together for the Baxter Building. Hyperion runs into Ben right outside the building, and, not recognizing him, starts a fight when he shoves him out of the way...

Clobberin' Time?:
      Page 14, panel 2. Hyperion runs into Ben and foolishly pushes him out of the way. "Awright, Buddy! Ya jest caught me in the right mood! I'm itchin' fer a fight- and that means- "It's Clobberin' Time!"

Petunia's Patch:
      No Petunia.

Things of Interest:
      The Serpent Crown (retrieved last issue) is deposited at Project Pegasus in this issue. It next appears in Marvel Team-Up Annual 5, which features Ben as one of its many guest stars.
     I believe this is the first real appearance of a working Nth Projector- though similar, the device by which the Nth Man was created (in issue 57-58) seems to have a fundamentally different effect. Nth Projectors are found throughout the Marvel universe in many different roles over the years- in Captain America 286-288, which ties into the Deathlok continuity; in the Quasar series, relating the the villain the Angler; in Alpha Flight Vol. 2 no. 12 as the object of an attempted theft by Zodiac; and in Avengers Annual '98, where its used to return the Squadron Supreme to their home world.
     The Hyperion of this issue is the Hyperion from the Squadron Sinister and _not_ the one from the Squadron Supreme. He had last appeared in Thor 280 and does not again appear until issue 8 of Mark Gruenwald's Squadron Supreme limited series.
     Thundra does not again appear after this issue until Fantastic Four issue 303.